Garland: Political consensus isn't meant to be easy goal

In the spotlight

Posted: Sunday, July 10, 2011

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Interspersed among the burgers and fireworks enjoyed over the Independence Day weekend, my wife and I had something of a philosophical discussion on the nature of our society's political discourse apropos to the occasion.

Our ramblings touched on the attainability of political consensus or, as is frequently the case with the varied issues of the day, the demonstrable lack thereof.

Concerning this conspicuous lack of consensus, we citizens are routinely subjected to commentary fraught with worry as to how polarized our politics has become.

Partisan -- though perhaps "ideological" may be a more appropriate term -- disagreement is relentlessly portrayed as being at unprecedentedly dangerous levels, with many pleading for some imagined and superior middle course transecting the supposed extremes of left and right.

As something of a student of history and politics, I have serious doubts as to the validity of any such claim. It seems to me that, if anything, our current level of political discord is remarkably similar to those of most other periods of our nation's history. And, though most folks may fail to recognize the fact, this is not such a bad thing.

The Founding Fathers thought the political consensus necessary to affect national policy should be deliberately difficult to attain, and set their new government up accordingly.

Thus, they purposefully designed the framework of our national government, enshrined in the Constitution, to engender conflict within itself.

Hopefully, we all remember from civics class that the government of the United States is divided into three branches -- legislative, executive, and judicial. The founders thought the best way to prevent any one branch of government from becoming too overbearing was for the other branches to restrain it through a mechanism known as "separation of powers." Articles 1, 2 and 3 of the Constitution assign specific duties and responsibilities to each of the three branches to ensure the proverbial "checks and balances" on the ambitions of the other branches.

The legislative branch was further divided between a House of Representatives designed to represent the interests of the people generally and elected directly by them, and a Senate structured to serve the same function with regard to the "sovereign states" and selected by the legislatures thereof -- the interests of these two groups were not assumed to be the same. Regrettably, in my opinion, with the adoption of the 17th Amendment, the states no longer have effective representation in our national government and no longer can be regarded as sovereign.

Our system of government was similarly designed to engender conflict between the national government and those of the states. The concept of "federalism," whereby specific duties and responsibilities were reserved for the national government and others were not, is illustrated by the provisions of the Constitution's Ninth and 10th amendments, the last two elements of the Bill of Rights.

The Ninth Amendment reads, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The 10th Amendment states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." There's no doubt the founders thought the interests of the national government, those of the states, and those of the people would be locked in a constant competition, and they sought to employ that adversarial relationship for the good of the governed.

Finally, the founders recognized the government set up by the Constitution was as imperfect as they were, and they included a process for changing it. Even here, though, the desire to make consensus difficult to achieve is readily apparent. Article 5 provides for a process whereby amendments can be proposed by either a two-thirds vote of both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of the state legislatures. Once proposed, changes to the Constitution must be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures or state conventions called for that purpose.

Political consensus should result only from vigorous competition within the marketplace of ideas, not from a desire to avoid conflict or from imposition by those who rule.

Yes, consensus is necessary to govern effectively, but the bar required to generate that consensus was set very high by those who founded our republic -- intentionally so. Sound governance demands no less.

• James Garland, an alumnus of the University of Georgia and longtime resident of the Athens area, blogs at The Other Athens, on the Web at theotherathens.blogspot.com.